Boston Highways Defeat GPS Dominatrix

You have your rural parts, where regardless of your speed you will be tailgated by at least one pickup truck at all times.

You have your Cape Cod area, where everyone tailgates everyone else because this is the way gridlock works.

And you have your in-and-around Boston belt, where the rules of the road are all house rules, and if you don't know exactly where you are going you will never get there because in the entire history of driving in and around Boston no local resident has ever cut anyone driving a vehicle with out-of-state plates a break.

I was in Boston this past weekend. You may have guessed that.

It was not a relaxing experience. You may have guessed that, too.

What you may not have guessed, however, is that Dominatrix, my GPS navigation system lady, became so flustered trying to find her way around that she is now on medication.

The GPS, of course, is the best thing to happen to baby boomers since heated front seats. When it's working correctly, the GPS is like having a local gas station attendant right there next to you providing directions.

This assistance is especially important when it is dark out and everyone seems to have their high beams on. (Has anyone ever thought of marketing a GPS coupled with night-vision goggles to baby boomers?)

Anyway.

A high-functioning and confident GPS is particularly crucial in and around Boston because there are so many interconnecting ways to bypass the city and no discernible relationship between where you are going, and where you should be, and where the array of confusing and contradictory road signs say you are.

And then there are the construction zones. As afar as I can tell all major roads and highways in and around Boston are always undergoing construction.

What was particularly difficult for Dominatrix was dealing with the number of roads that were supposed to be there but had somehow vanished or relocated themselves.

It got pretty ugly.

I got lost several times and took to cursing out Dominatrix, who got upset and went into some kind of "recalculating" loop, which lead to more harsh exchanges, and, well …